“No,” I said quickly, “she didn’t.
She must know, of course, but I’m sure that
didn’t enter into it.”

Nancy’s eyes as they returned to me were wet,
and in them was an expression I had never seen before,—­of
pain, reproach, of questioning. It frightened
me.

“Oh, Hugh, how little you know!” she cried.

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

“That is what has brought her to this decision—­you
and I.”

“You mean that—­that Maude loves me?
That she is jealous?” I don’t know how
I managed to say it.

“No woman likes to think that she is a failure,”
murmured Nancy.

“Well, but she isn’t really,” I
insisted. “She could have made another
man happy—­a better man. It was all
one of those terrible mistakes our modern life seems
to emphasize so.”

“She is a woman,” Nancy said, with what
seemed a touch of vehemence. “It’s
useless to expect you to understand.... Do you
remember what I said to you about her? How I
appealed to you when you married to try to appreciate
her?”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate
her,” I interrupted, surprised that Nancy should
have recalled this, “she isn’t the woman
for me, we aren’t made for each other.
It was my mistake, my fault, I admit, but I don’t
agree with you at all, that we had anything to do with
her decision. It is just the—­the culmination
of a long period of incompatibility. She has
come to realize that she has only one life to live,
and she seems happier, more composed, more herself
than she has ever been since our marriage. Of
course I don’t mean to say it isn’t painful
for her.... But I am sure she isn’t well,
that it isn’t because of our seeing one another,”
I concluded haltingly.

“She is finer than either of us, Hugh,—­far
finer.”

I did not relish this statement.

“She’s fine, I admit. But I can’t
see how under the circumstances any of us could have
acted differently.” And Nancy not replying,
I continued: “She has made up her mind
to go,—­I suppose I could prevent it by taking
extreme measures,—­but what good would it
do? Isn’t it, after all, the most sensible,
the only way out of a situation that has become impossible?
Times have changed, Nancy, and you yourself have been
the first to admit it. Marriage is no longer
what it was, and people are coming to look upon it
more sensibly. In order to perpetuate the institution,
as it was, segregation, insulation, was the only course.
Men segregated their wives, women their husbands,—­the
only logical method of procedure, but it limited the
individual. Our mothers and fathers thought it
scandalous if husband or wife paid visits alone.
It wasn’t done. But our modern life has
changed all that. A marriage, to be a marriage,
should be proof against disturbing influences, should
leave the individuals free; the binding element should
be love, not the force of an imposed authority.
You seemed to agree to all this.”